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THE 



CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY 



OP THE 



Jitkral ^okrnment 



TO ABOLISH 



AMERICAN SLAVERY 

AN EXPOSE 

OP THE 

POSITION OF THE ABOLITION SOCIETY 

r 
OP 



NEW-YORK CITY AND YICJOTTY. 

-■_ , (:'- Co:- 



NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY THE ABOLITIOX SOC. OF NEW-YORK CITY, ETC, 

48 BEEKMAN STREET. 

1855 






^ EXPOSITION 



DUTY OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO 
ABOLISH SLAVERY. 

The Abolition Society of ^New-York City rtkI vicinity, 
at its organizaiia»^ issued an Address to the people of 
the L^nited States, in exposition of its principles and ob- 
jects, and inviting the friends of liberty, in their several 
localities, to organize similar societies. In addition to this, 
the Executive Committee have now thought it ad-^isable 
to make a brief exposition of their Constitution, together 
with a condensed outline of the course of argument by 
which its peculiar positions are sustained. 

THE NAME OF THE SOCIETY. 

Anti-Slavery Societies have been chiefly occupied in 
exposing the nature, the character, and the effects of 
slavery, and urging the duty and safety of immediate 
and unconditional emancipation. This Society takes the 
name oi Abolition Society, as more properly indicative of 
its specific design to procure the abolition of slavery — 
the suppression, by civil government, and particularly 
by the Federal Government, of the criminal practice 
of slaveholding. 

WHAT IS MEANT BY THE ILLEGALITY OF SLAVERY. 

When we say that slavery is illegal, we mean not 
merely that it is morally wrono-, wicked, or sinful, in the 



2 WHY SLAVERY IS ILLEGAL. 

sight of God, but that it is likewise unlawful, hy the 
established 2)rinci2)l€s of human jurisjyriidence, just as 
murder, arson, robbery, theft, and assault and battery, 
are unlawful, and that there is no more valid law for 
the one than there is for the other. We mean that 
slaveholding is illegal, as other criminal practices are 
illegal We affirm that there is no legislation in any 
of the States that makes it legal. We maintain that, 
even without any legislation against slavery, it is now 
the right and duty of the Courts of Justice to liberate 
any slave who may bring a suit for his or her freedom. 

WHY SLAVERY 13 ILLEGAL. 

We affirm its illegality on two general grounds: 
First, Slavery can not possibly be legalized. Second, 
If it could be, it 7i€ver has been, and is not now, le- 
galized in this country. The ground first mentioned 
is that of an universal and immutable 2)rinci2)le ; the 
second is that of history, and of existing local fa<;f. 

First, Slavery can not possibly be legalized. In its 
very nature it is incapable of legalization. The standard 
writers on common law affirm the impossibility of legal- 
izing slavery, even by positive luunicipal law. They de- 
clare the right to liberty to be inalienable, and that sta- 
tutes against fundamental morality are void.^' 

The nature of civil government and of civil law, as 
defined by all standard writers on those subjects, proves 
it impossible to legalize slavery.f " To secure" man's 
inalienable I'ights, ''governments are instituted among 
men." And consequently they can have no lawful au- 
thority to violate the rights which they exist only to pro- 
tect. The protection of human rights necessarily in- 

* Coke, Fortescue, Blackstone, etc, 

t MoBcs, Cicero, Justinian, Coke, Fortescue, Lyttleton, Blackstone, Jacob, 
(Law Dictionary,) Hobart, Novo*, Wood, Hampden, Witberspoon, Yattel, 
Hooker, etc. 



WHY SLAVERY IS ILLEGAL. 3 

volves the prohibition and suppression of shiveholding. 
Having no legal authority to violate men's natural rights, 
governments can delegate no such authority to others. 
The powers of civil government are hmited. But they 
would be unhmited, if they could have the authority and 
the power to legalize the enslavement of their subjects. 
All the declarations ever made (and they have abounded 
in all civilized nations and ages) that all men are created 
equal, that all men are entitled to personal liberty, and 
that governments are for the protection of rights,* are 
so many declarations that slavery is incapable of legaliza- 
tion. All the venerated definitions of law go to the same 
point. '' Whatever is just,^' says Cicero, " is also the 
true laiv, nor can this true law^ be abrogated by any writ- 
ten enactments." "Municipal law," says Blackstone, 
"is properly defined to be a rule of civil conduct, pre- 
scribed by the supreme power in a state, commanding 
what is RIGHT, and prohibiting what is wrong" "Po- 
litical law," says Witherspoon, "is the authority of any 
society stamped upon moral duty." And, according to 
Jacob's Law Dictionary, " Law" is " the rule and bond 
of men's actions, or it is a rule for the well-government 
of civil society, to give to every man that which doth 
BELONG to him." 

In short, the entire science of civil government and 
civil law will have to be revised and revolutionized be- 
fore slavery can be made legal. 

Second, But, if it were possible to legahze slavery, it 
is historically certain that it never has been legalized in 
this country. No statutes have been enacted that could 
have legalized it — none that have even pretended to do 
so. To this point we have the tesiimony of the prominent 
slaveholding statesmen and jurists of America. 

* See Letters on Slavery, by O. S. Freeman; containing quotations from 
Aristotle, Ciocro, Seneca, and other renowned men of antiquity and of subse- 
quent ages^ 



4 WHY SLAVERY IS ILLEGAL. 

The late John C. Calhoun, of South-Carolina ;* Judge 
Matthews, of Louisiana;! Senator Mason, of Virginia, 
Mr. Bayljs, Representative in Congress from the same 
State ]l Senator Douglas, of Illinois, Mr. Toombs, of 
Georgia ;§ Gen. St^ingfello^v, of Missouri, with Hon. S. C. 
Brooks and John McQueen, of South-Carolina, William 
Smith, of Virginia, and Thomas L. Clingman, of North- 
Carolina,! (Members of Congress,) and Southern editors 
geneially, affirm that slavery grew up in the American 
Colonies without any positive enactments creating or au- 
thorizing it — that nothing of that character is known to 
the legislation of this country — although statutes have 
been framed to regulate what was assumed to have had 
a previous legal existence. And yet it is admitted by 
the Southern Courts that slavery is contrary to natural 
right and to common law, and can only exist by the force 
of local, municipal, positive law. On this gi-ound, the 
Southern Courts have liberated slaves who had been car- 
ried by consent of their masters beyond the liaiits of tlie 
local jui-isdiction where they had been held as slaves.^ 
The Supreme Court of the United States (in the case of 

* Reply to T. II. Benton, 1S49. 

t American Slave Code, pp. 266-268. " No legislative act of the colonies 
can be found in relation to if — Wietler's Law of Slavery, pp. 8, 9. 

X Mr. Mason objected to a jury trial for fugitives on the gi-ound that such 
a process Avould require that "proof shall be brought forward that slavery is 
established by existing laws ;" and, said he, ' it is impossible to comply with 
the requisition ,/*>r no such law can he produced^ — GooddVs Slavery and 
Anti-Slavery, jip. 570, 571. 

§ Debates in Congress on the Nebraska Bill. Determined to carry slavery 
into Kansas and Nebraska without any statutory enactments creating it, they 
were driven to tho necessity of declaring the truth that it had been intro- 
duced into all the slave States withoutstatute. 

\ These gentlemen assume the present legality of slavery in Kansas 
"without any positive law."' And they say ' The veriest school-boy must 
know— rts a' matter of history— i'ha.t, although slavery existed in all the old 
States, in not one of them was a law ever enacted to establish it." — Jfetc- 
York Daily Trihicne, Jan. 17, 1S55. 

^ American Slave Code, pp. 261-264. Wheeler's Law of Slavery, 340- 
346, 34S, 849. 335. Story's ConHict of Laws, 92-97. 8 Louisiana Reports. 475. 
2 Marshall's Kentucky Rep., 467. Martin's Lou. Rep.. 401. Walker's Miss. 
Kep., 36. 



HISTORICAL OUTLINE. O 

Prigg VS. Pennsylvania, 16 Peters) declared that "the 
state of slavery is a mere municipal regulation, /o2/;?c?eof 
iq)on and limited to the verge of the teri'itorial law." 
Putting these two statements together, the matter-of-fact 
illegality of American slavery is seen at a glance. 

HISTORICAL OUTLI^'E. 

The whole history of slavery and of the slave trade in 
England and her American Colonies shows that slavery 
has never been legalized. 

The " permit" of Queen Ehzabeth to John Hawkins, to 
carry Africans to the Colonies, forbade their transporta- 
tion without their own free consent. But he took them 
away by brute force, and, therefore, in violation of the con- 
ditions of the permit under which he pretended to act.* 
All the subsequent acts of parliament "regulating the 
trade to Africa," particularly the act of 23 George IL, 
chiefly relied upon by the slave traders, forbade, under 
heavy penalties, the carrying away of Africans by any act 
of " fraud, force, or violence."! But the whole history of 
the trafhc proves it to have been prosecuted in open and 
direct violation of these prohibitions. So that the mat- 
ter-of-fact African slave trade never was legalized. This 
was proved by "William Pitt, in the British Parliament, 
and this led to the abolition of the slave trade. | 

When the slaves were landed in the Colonies and sold 
to the planters, there were no English or colonial statutes 
authorizing the procedure. Ilad there been any, they 
would have been of no valid force, because contrary to the 
British constitution and the English common law. This 
appears from the decision of Lord Chief Justice Mans- 
field, who, on this ground, liberated the slave Somerset, 

* Clarkson's History, p 30 ; Edwards' History of West-Indies, vol 2, pp. 
43,44; Goodell's Slavery and Anti-Slavery p. 6. 

t Spooner's Unconstitutionality of Slavery, pp. 29-35. 

X CJarkson's History, p. 314 ; Goodell's Slavery and Anti-Slavery, p. 65. 



6 HISTORICAL OUTLINE. 

and declared slavery illegal in England, in llie year 1*7 '72. 
four years before onr Declaration of Independence. The 
same decision, though never enforced in the colonies, 
was legally binding upon them, as Granville Sharpe pub- 
licly maintained."" The colonial charters, moreover, re- 
stricted the colonial legislatures from passing any laws 
contrary to the common law of England, which forbids 
slavery .f And finally, there were no colonial enactments, 
up to the hour of the Declaration of Independence, that 
even undertook to legalize slavery, and there have been 
no such State enactments since. 

The Declaration of Independence would have abolished 
slavery if it had had any previous legal existence. Add 
to this, the Constitutions of all the oiiginal States, formed 
soon after the Declaration of Independence, were incom- 
patible with slavery. And so was the common law. On 
these grounds, the Courts in Massachusetts, without any 
legislative enactment on the subject, decided that slavery 
was illegal.]; And slavery in all the other States stood 
precisely on the same basis. 

No one charges upon the old '' iVrticles of Confedera- 
tion" any recognition of slavery. And no one supposes 
that the Federal Constitution orio-inated it, or p-ave to it 
any legal validity which it did not possess before. The 
absolute illegality of slavery, at the time the Federal 
Constitution was adopted, is hence as certain as any 
legal fact of history can be, and no one pretends that it 
has acquired any additional legality since that time. This 
fact we have deemed an important one to be affirmed in 
the Constitution of our Abolition Society, as a foundation 

* Stuarfs Memoir of Sharpe; Clarksons History; Slavery and Anti-Sla- 
very, chap vi 

+ Vide Sponner. 

X Pickering's Eeports pp. 209 210 ; Kent's Commentary p. 252 ; Wash- 
hurn's Jnd. Hist Mass. p 202; Dr Jonathan Edwards' Sermon, Sept 15, 
1791. See Goodch's Slavery and Anti-SIaverv. pp. IH, 112. 



SLAVERY FORBIDDEN BY THE CONSTITUTION. 7 

of our distinctive measures. We have, therefore, affirm- 
ed further that 



It is a violation of the Constitution. It can not legally 
exist under the Constitution, whicK does not sanction nor 
even tolerate its existence. 

If slavery be iUegal it is unconstitutional, of course. If 
it was illegal when the Constitution was adopted, then the 
Constitution can contain no legal recognition of it — no 
binding compromise with it. The Constitution could 
not have recognized as legal what did not legally exist, 
could not have formed any valid compromise with it. 

Slavery is unconstitutional because it is irreconcilably 
opposed to the declared objects of the Constitution, name- 
ly, " to form a more perfect union, establish justice, en- 
sure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, 
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of 
liberty to ourselves and our posterity." These grand 
objects of the Constitution can never be secured so long 
as slavery is permitted to exist in the nation. 



SLAVERY IS FORBIDDEN BY THE COXSTITUllON. 

The Constitution forbids slaver}^ by declaring that " no 
person shall be deprived of liberty without due process 
of law." The j^hrase " due process of law," means in- 
dictment and trial by jury for some alleged crime, and 
verdict and sentence in open Court. For this definition 
we have the f.uthority of Lord Coke, Judge Story,^'' and 
Justice Bronson.f And by the two latter this defini- 
tion is expressly applied to this clause of the Constitu- 

* story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, in which 
he cites the definition of Lord Coke. 

t Hill's Reports, iv., 146. VkJe Gerrit Smith's speech in ConEci'ess on the 
Nebraska Bill. 



8 CONSTITUTION PROVIDES FOR LIBERATION. 

tion of tlie United States. No one will pretend 
that any slave in tlie United States ever lost his liber- 
ty/ by this process, or that " due process of law" could 
ever reduce any man to slavery^ though it may de- 
prive him of liberty by imprisonment for crime. This 
provision of the Constitution is an " Amendment^^^ which, 
like the codicil to a ^Yill, over-rides, displaces, and abro- 
gates whatever in the orig'inal instrument might have 
been inconsistent with it. 

In another " Amendment" the Constitution forbids 
slavery by providing that " the right of the people to be 
secure in their ^;^r5o;i5," etc., etc., " shall not be violated." 

THE CONSTITUTION FORBIDS THE STATES TO MAINTAIN 
SLAVERY. 

It does this by providing that ^^No State shall pass 
any bills of attainder or laws impairing the obligations 
of contracts ;" nor " grant any title of nobility." 

Slavery is an " attainder" because it " attaints the 
blood," and imposes disabilities on the chikl, on account 
of the condition of the parent. It establishes an order 
of nobility by that same process, and by conferring 
hereditary or transferable powers of subjugation and 
control upon one class or order of men oxer another class, 
their hereditary inferiors and subjects. It not mereh' 
impairs but annihilates the power of making contracts. 

THE CONSTITUTION FROVIDES FOR LIBERATION. 

The Constitution not only forbids slavery but provides 
for the liberation of eveiy slave, by declaring that " the 
writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended in time of 
peace." " It is this writ," (says Christian, the annotator 
of Blackstone,) " which makes slavery impossible in Eng- 
land." Its proper application would make slavery im- 
possible here. 



PO\\TRS OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 9 

" The object of the writ," (says Blackstone,) " is to 
bring the body of the person who has been restrained 
of hberty" into Court, " who shall determine vjliether the 
cause of his commitment he just, and thereupon to do, 
as JUSTICE shall appertain." (16 Charles I. c. lo! 
Blackstone's Com., B. I. 135.) "It is to be directed to 
the person detaining another^ and commanding him to 
produce the body of the prisoner, with the day and 
cause of his capture and detention," etc., " to do, submit 
to, and receive whatsoever the judge or court awarding 
the writ shall consider in that behalf." Blackstone, B. 
I, 131.) 

This writ^ according to Blackstone, was designed to 
carry out, more perfectly, the provision of Magna Charta, 
that no man should be deprived of Hberty "unless it be by 
legal indictment, or the process of common law ;" whicli 
includes trial by jury. 

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS TOWER TO ABOLLSIl 
SLAVERY. 

It has this power just as clearly as it has power to 
secure the declared objects of the instrument that gave 
it existence for the very jixirpose of securing them — the 
power " to form a more perfect union, establish justice, 
insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common de- 
fence, promote the general welfare, and secure the bless- 
ings of Ubertg to ourselves and our posterity." The 
power to do either one of these six things includes am- 
ple power to abolish slavery. 

Congress has power to declare war and make peace. 
Slavery is an outrage on the slaves, and they are 
necessarily enemies to the nation that permits it. Con- 
gress, therefore, has power to make peace with the slaves 
by restoring to them their rights. John Quincy Adams 
affirmed the right of Congress to abolish slavery as a 



10 DUTIES OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 

means of defence in time of war. But until slavery is 
abolished, we are continually exposed to a state of war. 
And the same principle affirmed by Mr. Adams would 
warrant abolition as a means of preserving peace or of 
being prepared for war. 

" Congress has power to provide for the common de- 
fence and general welfare of the United States." But 
Ihis can not be done without abohshing slavery. 

" Congress shall have power to establish a uniform 
rule of naturalization." To "naturalize" a man is to 
change his condition from that of an alien to that of a 
free citizen. Under this clause Congress may determine 
whether or no the slaves are already free citizens. If 
they are, it can declare them to be so. If they are not^ 
it can naturalize them, and 7nake them such. 



THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS CONSTITUTIONALLY BOUND 
TO ABOLISH SLAVERY. 

The Constitution binds the Federal Government to 
abolish slavery in binding it to secure its own declared 
objects, (as already enumerated,) and in bringing the 
Federal Government into existence for this very end. 
If the Government is not bound to do this, it is bound 
to do nothing in support of the Constitution, or for the 
benefit of the people. 

The Constitution provides, that "The United States 
SHALL guarantee to EVERY State in this Union a re- 
publican form of government." This makes it the duty 
of Congress to see to it that every State maintains re- 
publican institutions. But what is a republic? The 
Constitution itself, in its preamble and in the provisions 
already quoted, furnishes the definition. 

" It is essential to a repubhcan government that it be 
derived from the great body of society, -not from an in- 



STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL PO^^'ER. 11 

considerable proportion, OR a favored class of iV (Madi- 
son, in No. 39 of the Federalist.) 

This was written for the especial object of persuading 
the people to adopt the Constitution, by convincing them 
that it provided a republican government. 

"The true foundation of republican goverraent is the 
equal rights of every citizen in his person and property, 
and in ilieir management." (Jefferson.) 

And Mr. Jefferson frequently calls the slaves citizens* 

STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL POWER. 

Whatever the rights of the States may be, they can 
not include nor sanctify State wrongs. The States have 
reserved no riglit to violate the inalienable rights for the 
protection of which both the State and National Govern- 
ments were organized. They can have no right to do 
that which the Federal Constitution, ratified by them, 
expressly forbids them to do. 

However limited the powers of the Federal Govern- 
ment may be, they are not restricted from doing that 
which pertains essentially, in the nature of things, to all 
civil government, namely, to protect the personal liberty 
of its subjects. Such a restriction would render it no 
civil government at all. The Federal Government is not 
rest) icted from the proper exercise of the powers expressly 
conferred upon it, nor from doing the service which the 
Constitution expressly requires it to do. 

"The Constitution and the laics of the United States wliich 
shall be made in pursuance thereof,"' etc., etc., "shall be the 
SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND, and the judges in every State shall 
be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laivs of any 
State to the contrary notiviihstanding.''^ 

* " "With ivhat execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting 
one half of the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, trans- 
forms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the 
one part, and the amor patriae of the other ! For if a slave can have a conn- 
try in this world, it must be any other than that in which he is born to live 
and labor for another," etc. — A'otes on Virginia. 



J 2 "intentions" and "understandings." 

We see this principle professedly acted upon, to en- 
force unconstitutional enactments, (in favor of slavery,) 
and it is time to use it to enforce constitutional laws for 
the protection of liberty. 

" The Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall 
be necessary and proper for carrying- into execution the foregouig 
powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the 
Government of the United States, or in any department or officer 
thereof." (Art. I., Sect. 8, Clause 10.) 



In the Virginia Convention that ratified the Constitu- 
tion, Patrick Henry (a member of the Federal Conven- 
tion) said that Congress, by the Constitution, had "power 
to pronounce all slaves free." " There is," said he, " no 
ambiguous implication or logical deduction. The iKiper 
speciks to the i^oint. They have the 2^oiver in clear and 
unequivocal terms, and loill clearly and certainly exer- 
cise itr 

In the same Convention, Gov. Randolph said : " They 
insist that the abolition of slavery will result from this 
Constitution. I hope there is no one here who will ad- 
vance an objection so dishonorable to Virghiia. I lioj^e 
that at the moment they are securing the rights of their 
citizens, an objection will not be started that those unfor- 
tunate men now held in bondage by the operation of 
THE General Government, may be made free." 

With this " understanding" the Constitution was rati- 
fied by Virginia. 

Gen. Wilson, another member of the Federal Conven- 
tion, from Pennsylvania, assured the people of that State 
that the Constitution "laid a foundation for banishing 
slavery out of this country." 



WHAT SLAVEIIOLDEKS CL.UM. 13 



WHAT SLAVEHOLDERS CLAIM. 

The clauses commonly quoted in favor of the claims of 
the slaveholders, do not warrant those claims. And if 
they did, they could not nullify or abrogate the preced- 
ing ones. 

The clause concerning "persons held to service and 
labor in one State, under the laws thereof, and escaping 
to another" — and providing that they "shall be delivered 
up to the person to whom such service or labor riiayj he 
due^'' can not apply to slaves. It does not describe 
their condition. Being held as " chattels personal," they 
are not recognized as " persons." " Slaves can make no 
contract;" and, therefore, nothing can be "c/i/e" from 
them. There are no laws holding them to "service, or 
labor" in any of the slave States, nor any laws that estab- 
lish or legalize slavery. The use of the word "service" 
instead of "servitude," proves that this clause cnn not 
apply to " slaves," but only to " free persons ;" for this dis- 
tinction, by the testimony of Mr. Madison, had been 
made by the Convention itself, in respect to the meaning 
of these two words. 

"Art. I., Sec. 2. On motion of Mr. Randolph, tlie word ^ servi- 
fudt was struck out, and the word ^servk(i unanimously inserted; 
the former being thought to express the condition of slaves, and 
the latter the oUigations of free persons.'' (Madison Papers, Vol. 
III., page 1569.) 

So that this clause can not apply to slaves, but only to 
apprentices, free laborers, and contractors who had agreed, 
for a consideration received, to perform " service or labor." 

The phrase ^'■free persons," in the clause concerning 
the apportionment of representatives and direct taxes, has 
been construed as having been used in contradistinction 
from cdiens, not slaves. High authorities for this con- 
struction are cited by Mr. Spooner. The clause concern- 



14 MODES OF ABOLISHING SLAVERY. 

ing the migration or importation of certain persons pre- 
vious to 1808, and commonly applied to the African 
slave-trade, is also susceptible of a different interpretation, 
as has often been shown. But if this was a " compro- 
mise" with slavery, it has long since, by its own limita- 
tion, expired, and there is no good reason why the plain 
and explicit powers vested in the Federal Government 
should not now be exercised for the abolition of slavery. 

MODES OF ABOLISHING SLAVERY, 

There are many ways by which the Federal Govern- 
ment, in strict accordance with the Constitution, may 
abolish slavery. Either department of the Government, 
by itself, may do much, if not all, that would be neces- 
sary to secure that result. 

The judiciary department is amply competent to the 
task, in the absence of any legislation whatever. Any 
one of the Federal Courts has power to issue the writ of 
habeas corpus to any slave that may demand it. Nay, 
the judges are under the most solemn constitutional obli- 
gations to do su. And when the slave and his master 
are brought into Court, they are bound to " determine 
whether the cause of his (the slave's) commitment (de- 
tention in slavery) be just, and thereupon do as JUSTICE 
shall appertain." In doing this they w^ould follow the 
illustrious precedents of the Courts of Massachusetts and 
of Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, in the casecf Somerset ; 
a decision which immortalized his name, and shed a lus- 
tre of unfading glorv on the jurisprudence of his coun- 
try.* 

* The effects of this decision are thus celebrated by Cowper : 

" Slaves can not breathe in England ; if their lungs 
Eeceive our air, that moment they are free ; 
They touch our country, and their shackles fall 
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud 
And jealous of the blessiug." 



MODES OF ABOLISHING SLAVERY. 15 

If the judiciary fails to do this, the Legislature should 
provide for it by special enactment. 

The same power that establishes the present Federal 
Courts may, if necessary, establish Federal Courts in 
every county or town in the Union, and the same author- 
ity that appoints the present judges may appoint proper 
judges in all those courts. (See Art. II., Sect. 2, and Art. 
IIL, Sect. 1.) 

The President, in the exercise of his appointing power, 
may appoint to office any slave whom he deems qualified 
to discharge its duties; and he is bound, by his oath of 
office, to treat slavery as illegal and unconstitutional in 
all his official acts. This covers a wide field. 

Congress is bound to do the same, and in its organiza- 
tion of the militia, its supervision of the post-offices and 
the transportation of the mails, to know nothing of slavery 
or of distinctions of color. It is bound to " guarantee to 
every State in this Union a republican form of govern- 
ment" that shall displace slavery; by just such measures 
as it would employ, if a State should establish an " order 
of nobility" in any other form, or substitute a hereditary 
monarchy for a representative government. 

Congress, by a declaratory enactment, may pronounce 
all the slaves citizens^ and, as such, entitled to the protec- 
tion of the Federal Government. Congress, in the same 
manner, if need be, may declare the ftict of the case as it 
exists — that slavery is illegal and in violation of the Con- 
stitution. Or it may, by appropriate enactments, provide 
for the naturalization of the slaves and their consequent 
protection. It may then provide for an apportionment 
of representation in accordance with the constitutional 
provision, properly construed, enumerating " three fifths" 
of the aliens^ as in contradistinction from ^''free perscns^^'' 
or " all other persons." 

The entire subject is within the legitimate action of 



16 MODES OF ABOLISHING SLAVERY. 

the Federal Government, which has been so long wielded 
for the su2-)port of slavery. And the people of the Free 
States, at the ballot-box, can provide for an administra- 
tion that will, in some w^ay, rid the nation of its great 
national iniquity. 

This is the enterprise to which we invite the friends of 
liberty in America. We urge its vigorous prosecution as 
a solemn duty to God, to our country, to the slave, and 
to mankind. God holds nations responsible for national 
sins. He holds the people of all nations responsible for 
ihQ execution of justice by their national governments. 
And under repubhcan governments, where the people 
elect their own rulers, there can be no shadow of ex- 
cuse for their ^j<^e'kct of this duty. 



ABOLITION SOCIETY 

OP 

NEW-YORK CITY AND VICINITY. 



CONSTITUTION. 

Art. I. This Society shall be called The Abolition Society of 
New- York City and Vicinity. 

Art. II. Its object shaU be to secure the immediate and un- 
conditional abolition of American Slavery. 

Art. III. Its leading sentiments are these : 

1. Slaveholding is sinful, illegal, and unconstitutional. It has 
no right to be in the Church or in the State. It is to be excluded 
from the former as a scandal, and prohibited by the latter as a 
crime. It is not sanctioned by the Bible or the Constitution, but 
is condemned by both. - 

2. It is the duty of the Federal Government, in aU its depart- 
ments, to suppress slaveholding throughout the United States. 

3. It is the duty of the several State governments to sustain 
the Federal Government in this measure, to protect their citizens, 
and all who touch their soil, from seizures by kidnappers or 
slaveholders, under the Fugitive Slave Bill, or otherwise ; to make 
all attempts at the execution of that unconstitutional and atro- 
cious Act a penal offense ; and to extend the right of suffrage and 
eligibility to office to all their citizens, irrespective of race or 
complexion. 

4. It is the duty of the citizens, at the ballot-box, to provide 
State and national administrations that will make these measures 
paramount objects of their activity ; to secure a judiciary that 
will execute justice ; to vote for such candidates for office, and for 
such only, as are tried friends of the enslaved, and publicly 
known to be earnestly engaged in promoting these measures. 

5. It is the duty of Christians to hold no Church relations that 
involve religious fellowship or ecclesiastical connectiQn with 
slaveholders. It is also their duty to sustain no Missionary So- 
ciety having complicity with slaveholding, nor any Tract Society, 
or other religious pubhsliing Society that does not expose and 
rebuke the heinous sin of slaveholding, in common with other 



Art. IV. The action of the Society will be directed to the 
furtherance of its objects, the propagation of its principles, the 
advocacy and promotion of its proposed pubUc measures, in all 
suitable ways; particularly by personal example, and by the 
publication and ckculation of cheap tracts, the employment of 
lecturers, and assisting to sustain a periodical, adapted to these 
purposes. 

Art. Y. Any person approving these objects, principles, and 
measures, and pledged to their support, by efibrt and example, 
may become a member of this Society by enrolling his name and 
contributing to its funds. 

Art. VI. The OflBcers of this Society shall be a President, 
Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer, who, together with ten 
others, shall constitute an Executive Committee, five of whom 
shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. 

Art. VII. The annual meeting of the Society, for election of 
officers and the transaction of other appropriate business, shall 
be held in the month of October, under direction of the Execu- 
tive Committee. 

Art. VIII. No amendment shaU be made in this Constitution 
without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present 
at a regular annual meeting, nor unless the proposed amendment 
lias been submitted to a previous meeting, or to the Executive 
Committd^e in season to be published by them (as it shall be their 
duty to do, if so submitted,) at the regular official notification of 
the meeting. 



\ 



OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. 



Lewis Tappan, President. 
James McCune Smith, Vice-President 
W. E. Whiting, Treasurer. 
"WiLLiAM^ooDELL, Secretary. 

Executive CoMMiwife, in addition to the preceding: 

Simeon S. Jocelyn, Charles B. Hay,*^ 

I. R. Barbour, ^ John "W. Hill, 

Samuel Wilde, Wm. T. Dawley, 

Geo. Whipple, ■ Hez. D. Sharpe, 

Wm. H. Pillow, G. S. Wells. 






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